The Avengers (SPOILERS BEWARE0

[jonesy]

Avengers is already the 47th highest grossing movie of all time. Forbes is predicting it will beat Avatar.

 

[Umbran]

As an aside - not that it's relevant - Star Trek TNG never got anywhere near 20M viewers in the US. It peaked at about 10M, and sunk to 4M.

Morrus, the numbers at that link are in terms of households, not individual viewers. The premier episode, "Encounter at Farpoint" was seen by an estimated 27 million people in it's first airing (which, given syndication, was not all on one night, but all in one week), and was an astounding success for the syndication model they chose to use.

And, given that Next Gen ended it's run in May 1994, I think getting 4 million viewers in 1998 would be pretty darned astounding! Damn that time travel, it gives me a headache!

But yes, Star Trek was never "mainstream". My point was merely, that "mainstream" does not equate to "widely viewed", or vice versa.

 

[Felon]

The original absurdity posted by Hobo was that Buffy was a commercial failure. It lasted seven seasons and became a franchise. If that's a failure, seems like the bar is set pretty high. Now we're going on about whether Buffy was mainstream, lending credence (even if unintentionally) to the false dichotomy that anything which doesn't do gangbusters in the mainstream equates to a commercial failure.

The show was successful for the type of show it was. A "cult" following? Well, insomuch as that mainstream audiences don't go for much outside of reality shows and police procedural dramas. Even though the sci-fi and fantasy genres are the box-office darlings year-in and year-out, those genres don't really enjoy a lot of followers on TV for whatever reason.

Morrus, the numbers at that link are in terms of households, not individual viewers. The premier episode, "Encounter at Farpoint" was seen by an estimated 27 million people in it's first airing (which, given syndication, was not all on one night, but all in one week), and was an astounding success for the syndication model they chose to use.

Sure, and like the WB and UPN channels, many folks simply didn't have the option of seeing them in their first run. When you start using a word like "mainstream", the qualifiers shift away from financial success to simple recognizability. I'd say Buffy and Picard are household names in the U.S, wouldn't you?

 

[Umbran]

Even though the sci-fi and fantasy genres are the box-office darlings year-in and year-out, those genres don't really enjoy a lot of followers on TV for whatever reason.

I guess it is largely this - on the silver screen, the sci-fi and fantasy genres hold the highest potential for amazing visuals and action sequences. They don't have that on the small screen.

Sure, and like the WB and UPN channels, many folks simply didn't have the option of seeing them in their first run.

I think the syndication for first run of Next Gen reached something like 90% of American homes. It was a major effort to pull that off, and many think it couldn't be done without the backing of a major network. But, well, it was Star Trek, and given flexibility, the stations took to it in droves.

I'd say Buffy and Picard are household names in the U.S, wouldn't you?

I am not at all sure they are. Kirk and Spock are, yes. But Buffy? I don't think she's much recognized outside geek circles. I'd guess Picard's somewhere in-between.

 

[jonesy]

"Just like Budapest all over again."

"You and I remember Budapest very differently."

 

[Jhaelen]

The original absurdity posted by Hobo was that Buffy was a commercial failure.

So he wasn't totally correct: just delete 'commercial' from the sentence and he's spot on

 

[Felon]

So he wasn't totally correct: just delete 'commercial' from the sentence and he's spot on

And something other than Buffy, like Firefly, Serenity, Dollhouse...

It is interesting to see how Whedon's body of works will evolve now that he's primed to topple King Cameron himself.

 

[Azgulor]

An Avengers sequel needs to learn from the X-men movies mistakes and avoid "insert new character here" syndrome. The movie established the team. Let that be the team.

The more characters that are introduced, the harder it gets to provide adequate story/screen time for each character (see introduction of non-essential new characters in Star Trek films for examples). The actors' contracts are formed around # of movie appearances. So if, for example, Thor gets short-shrift in Avengers 2 to make way for Vision, the actor is done after Thor 3 & Avengers 3 (barring a new contract). Also, unlike in comics, the actors will age and the longer the span of time between movies, the less likely you'll see them. If Ruffalo appears in Iron Man 3, that counts against his movie appearances so while he'll be in Avengers 2 & 3, it hedges against him having standalone Hulk movies.

If Avengers 2 or Avengers 3 has a completely different roster, they're going to derail the franchise. X3 had a weak-ass plot but it sure had a lot of throwaway appearances, didn't it?

I think it's far more likely you'll see characters like Wasp, Ultron, & Vision in Ant-Man (or its potential sequels) than in the Avengers. Ant Man hasn't really been an A-Lister that can carry his own series in the comics and if you're going to do an Ant Man movie, you're going to need to have some classic Pym storylines from the Avengers to do it well.

They could use Ant Man as the lead-in to Avengers 2 (or 3) if they wanted to go the Ultron route. However, I still believe additional heroes on the roster = diminshed story/screen time for the other heroes and/or the villain, which is big negative, IMO.

I put even odds that a Thanos conflict might be a build-up storyline that would culminate in Avengers 3 as the capstone "6th movie" for Iron Man, Thor, & Cap. Since Whedon thinks an Avengers 2 would be better served as smaller scale & more character focused, it's hard to see Thanos as an Avengers 2 BBEG, but we'll have to see who's writing/directing it...


Finally, can we take the Whedon/Buffy/WB vs UPN discussion to a new/forked thread, already? Sheesh.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I personally would love to see The Vision. He's iconic for a large chunk of Avengers history, and is distinctive enough in powers, appearance, and overall concept that he would be a stand-out character.

The vision was my favourite avenger in my formative years, I really liked the character and his powers which seemed unique at that time. As I remember the involvement of ultranationalist in his origin could easily be introduced as a later backstory. I read many avengers stories with the vision before I ever came across the Luton history, and that worked fine for me, it could work for others too.

However, all the avengers have had either movies of their own or cameos in other movies - I can't see another being introduced without some foreshadowing. I guess that might make ant man (hank pym) a good candidate wi lots of plot hooks around him.

Cheers

 

[Felon]

Having some spellcheck issues there, Plane?

An Avengers sequel needs to learn from the X-men movies mistakes and avoid "insert new character here" syndrome. The movie established the team. Let that be the team.

Never happen. And probably shouldn't happen. Audiences will want new stuff. If nothing else, they'll want to keep seeing superhero-versus-superhero action. Can't have Iron Man, Thor, and Cap mixing it up again, can we?

Since characters can be introduced in Marvel films leading into the Avengers (as you noted) then the concerns you have are largely addressed.